The WOND3R Team Shares How Cities All Over the World Have Built Creative Economies

And Why They Think that We Can Build a Creative Industry Economy in Houston

Work-In-Progress: Production Slate in Development, Midtown Arts and Theatre Center Houston, Houston, Texas | December 4, 2019

At the Work-In-Progress event on December 4, 2019, the team from the creative agency WOND3R spoke about working all over the world and shared how cities who've built creative economies did it and why they think that we can build a creative industry economy in Houston.

Charlie Le:

So we've worked at a lot of agencies around the world, and obviously all of these great agencies are not here in Houston. What we kind of realized is that we had to leave to kind of really love Houston, and what it forced us to do was really explore a lot of the interesting things that we had known before, especially for me.

So, we get asked this question very often, especially when we're outside of Houston and talking with our comrades at other agencies, what is so unique about Houston. Well, we believe that it's wholly underrated. A lot of people really overlook it, and to us that means that if it's being overlooked like that it can really pack a punch.

And everyone talks about diversity in Houston, and that's very true, but we really think that it is very special because, you know, we don't really ask for permission -- we should just ask for forgiveness, right? We should really do things first. Like Paul said, we should go out and do it and then seek forgiveness later. So I think, I think that's where we had this opportunity here, which is, um, if no one is doing anything that means no one is doing anything. We have the opportunity to do something, and I think that's a really unique point about Houston.

Kerry Chrapliwy:

I think one of the things that we forget is the economic impact of this. So, you know, this all looks like fun. Everybody thinks it's a fun industry, and it's a lot of blood, sweat, tears, passion, energy, and building it brick by brick. But when you look at the economics behind it, the creative economy in New York City in 2017 delivered $30 billion of revenue to that city --$30 billion!

So, when you think about what the economic potential is and where the city always talks about Houston wanting to grow with the young millennials and they want to create some kind of creative community here, you know, it's not just for fun. It is actually 300,000 jobs in New York City, $30 billion. And I believe that we can do that here because we have such a low cost of living, a high disposable income that we could take a huge chunk out of that $30 billion and bring it to Houston. That's our mission.

We're right across from Toot Suite downtown and East Side. Our office is always open. We have a happy hour every couple of weeks. Everyone's always invited. And, we're just trying to build the creative economy here, brick by brick, stone by stone.

Graham Painter:

What I can say is Lynn, thank you so much for everything you're doing. You're really a champion for all of us. And uh, you've taken really the first step toward what we've always been talking about with you, which is talking about this creative economy, establishing something that that becomes dialogue and it becomes a reality here in Houston. As Charlie was talking about, I considered myself a refugee. They call Houston a flypaper city. People get here and they get stuck. Well, I was an unstuck fly. I ran away to go do my thing in New York and London and around Asia Pacific and so forth and came back. I realized that those cities that I had gone to, each one of those had been developed almost artificially as creative hubs.

London that had been implemented there. It was very intentional. They developed the creative ministry there. That's still there. It's like 42% of jobs in Southeast England are all coming out of the creative industries. Then I go to Bangkok 2002, the prime minister had developed something called the Thai Culture and Design Center, and he made design and post production and production of all types of reality -- advertising and film and all sorts of arts that spurned outside of it. I think I'll steal Remy's line, which is a film was the most inclusive of all art forms. It builds everything else up. And, I think that was absolutely true, but these were not that long ago that these systems were put into place, guys. I mean those of you who think of London, you think creative Mecca, right? But, it wasn't until '97 they really started talking about creative economy and building this ministry. Thailand, for those of you that have spent time --obviously Megan did here, she went to Bangkok to get that boot [laughter] -- but, it's a creative hub. There's this energy. Obviously, when we're in New York, you know, we feel it.

So, it's up to us to really build that together. I think the fact that we're starting from zero, but we are this, somebody said third largest city, you know, I know we're certainly the fourth largest, if not the third largest, and we're the most diverse. So, we're also building things that are going to become the future for everybody else. And we're almost, because we're doing it in spite of ourselves, we're working harder, but we're having to come up with more creative solutions. We need to balance the economy here. We have the greatest minds in engineering and science in the world. Oil and gas has done that, but those of us that are hiding here, that are the creative minds to balance that, it's time we step up and do these projects. If we could do half of these projects that were up there, we're going to be way ahead guys. Thank you all for coming. Thank you. [clapping].